Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 March 2022
We certainly have moved forward but, as I will set out, the bill will provide a framework to underpin the work that we are doing and which we will undertake in the future. As with a lot of other things, we know that there is still a long way to go and that there are challenges that we need to get to grips with and tackle.
Before the intervention, I mentioned examples of work that we have done to become a good food nation.
As I said, we have supported the role of the Soil Association’s food for life programme, which ensures that more local food finds its way on to school dinner plates and that children eat more healthy and nutritious food. We provide grants to people who grow their own food in community gardens, which provide a healthy source of food locally and a focus for community events and education.
We continue to tackle the suffering that is caused by food insecurity. This financial year, we have provided around £2.5 billion to low-income households, including £56 million for free school meal alternatives during school holidays, £70 million in flexible local responses to food and financial insecurity, and more than £100 million for the third sector.
We are also working with the private sector. The Scottish Government and the food industry work together through Scotland Food & Drink, which is a unique partnership that facilitates our working side by side. We have supported industry to reformulate high-calorie foods and drinks in order to improve the nation’s health, to create regional food ambassadors and to resource regional food groups and events. Those and numerous other initiatives can be found in the latest update of our good food nation programme of measures, which is published on the Scottish Government’s website. The programme will now be underpinned by the measures in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, which will enable us to build momentum as we improve people’s lives through the food that they grow, buy and eat.
With the bill, we are taking the next steps on the good food nation journey. It will underpin the good work that we are already doing in law and act as the foundation on which we build our good food nation. I thank the members of the Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee for their report and their work in gathering evidence on the bill at stage 1. I will cover some of their conclusions and recommendations in the debate, but I will also provide a full response to the report before stage 2.
I also thank everyone who responded to the call for evidence—they did so passionately and with a wealth of knowledge of the food system.